Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Paul Lalonde <plalonde@telus.net>]

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The less cynical part of me says that windows got so huge through the  
usual process by which software gets huge: hiring.
It's really easy to believe you need more manpower on your software  
project.  That eventually leads to dividing your now-unmanageable  
team into smaller teams with interface committees sitting in  
between.  As the process repeats itself the interfaces become  
increasingly harder to change and the effort to re-use or encapsulate  
similar pieces of work from across organizational barriers becomes  
more than just re-building something expedient yourself.  Which leads  
to more hiring to help maintain the thing you built.  Which leads to  
more interfaces.

The number one job of a product/development manager should be to keep  
the team size small enough that this doesn't happen.  The number one  
job of the architect is to find an architecture that can be  
implemented by a team small enough that the interface documents stay  
small.  To bring this back onto topic, Plan 9's file server  
abstraction is exactly this: a mechanism to ensure that interfaces  
are consistent and that allows separation of development concerns  
without the strangle-hold of interface committees.

Paul

On 8-Mar-07, at 10:34 AM, Wes Kussmaul wrote:

> David Leimbach wrote:
>> So how did Windows get so huge? :-)
> By
> skillfully managing perceptions
> building a worldwide network of "certified" people whose  
> livelihoods depend upon increasing complexity
> ensuring the support of the hardware community by requiring regular  
> purchases of new computers
> working behind the scenes to ensure that friends become decision  
> makers
> FUD

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